Harvard’s mistake costs 11,000 employees

Four of the last seven US Treasury secretaries had Harvard degrees, but that does not mean the august university knows how to do its taxes.

Harvard University officials acknowledged Friday that a mistake in tax reporting led 11,000 employees to pay taxes on income they did not receive — to the tune of millions of dollars — between 2009 and 2013.

The university pledged on Friday to reimburse employees for the excess taxes they paid or help them file amended returns.

But that promise came only after a scathing critique from two Harvard Law School professors, Alvin C. Warren and Daniel I. Halperin.